Nils Lundkvist's update on his terrifying injury is finally out
Nils Lundkvist finally spoke about the skate that cut his face open during Game 4 against Minnesota, and the Stars defenseman walked away grateful.
The play happened on April 25 in Minnesota, an overtime loss for Dallas in the second period of a series Dallas was clinging to. The blade caught his face. The blood was real. The scare was bigger.
Lundkvist didn't dress for Game 5. He didn't dress for Game 6 either.
The Stars went home in 6 games to the Wild, and he watched the elimination from the press box.
That's the part the quote leaves out. A skate to the face means the same kind of injury that has ended careers in this sport.
Lundkvist landed on the right side of the inch.
His regular season was a steady one. The 25-year-old played 52 games on a $1.25 million cap hit, posting 3 goals, 8 assists, and a +12 rating from the third pair.
-
Why Dallas's Round 1 exit looks worse with this context
The Stars were the third overall team in the league. Dallas finished 50-20-12 for 112 points, second in their division behind Colorado. Round 1 against Minnesota was supposed to be a step on the way to a Conference Final.
Instead, they got bounced in 6 by a 104-point opponent. Three of the games went to overtime. Two of them flipped on a single goal. And Lundkvist was missing for the back end of it.
Glen Gulutzan took over behind the bench last July.
His first playoff run as Dallas head coach ended at the worst possible time, with the lineup short a depth defender on the back end.
Jim Nill walks into an offseason that wasn't supposed to start in May. The Stars were built to win this year.
Pieces are aging. The window is real. Round 1 doesn't move the franchise where it expects to go.
Here's the editorial line. A skate-to-face injury reframes the whole series in retrospect. Coaches don't get to call a roster reset because of an unlucky bounce of a blade. They have to play through it. And Dallas didn't.
Lundkvist's tone is the kind that makes a locker room better.
He turned a frightening injury into a casual quote and didn't ask anyone to feel sorry for him. That's a 25-year-old talking like a 35-year-old.
The face heals. The series doesn't get replayed.
The Stars now have a summer to figure out whether they're a step away from the Conference Final or a step further from contention than the points table suggested.
Lundkvist will be back at training camp.
The lucky part of the unlucky moment carries forward. Whether the rest of the Dallas roster is as fortunate this offseason remains a different question entirely.
|
LIVE
MAY 4, 2026
| ||||
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Nikolaj Ehlers | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Mitch Marner | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Ivan Barbashev | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Sean Couturier | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jamie Drysdale | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mikael Granlund | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| John Carlson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Carl Grundstrom | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jackson Lacombe | - | 1 | 1 | |
| K'Andre Miller | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jordan Staal | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Sean Walker | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | - | - | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||